Your DIY Christmas Card

By now you’ve made that final stop at the mailbox, looked inside, checked again, threw your arms up to the sky and shouted — “WHERE’S MY CHRISTMAS CARD FROM THE ROYS??!!!!”

My apologies. We didn’t get around to sending out Christmas cards this year. It’s been that kind of December.

It may surprise you to learn — given my generally Grinchy nature — that I actually enjoy the tradition of Christmas cards. It’s nice that one month out of the year you go to the mailbox every day and there’s something in there besides bills and advertisements.

And it’s nice to sit down at the kitchen table every year and pull out the address book and go through the pages and write the names and addresses of friends and family on them and then stick on a stamp. You can’t help but think fondly of these people as you’re putting a family photo that you had some company plaster a pre-planned greeting onto. And back at their house they’re doing the same thing.

And let’s face it, the Christmas card is pretty much the last gasp for old media. Nobody writes letters anymore. Nobody sends birthday cards — why spend money on a card when you can just type “Happy Birthday!” on their Facebook page? To be fair, I get far more birthday greetings now than I ever got before FB, but then most of those people wouldn’t be congratulating me on being born if FB didn’t remind them.

So yeah, I feel bad. Every day I go out and someone has sent me a nice card and I’ve done nothing for them. Just what I need: Christmas Guilt.

Then I came to a solution. It’s the Internet age, right? Why not take advantage of it? Just this once.

Here now, is your Do-It-Yourself Christmas Card for 2014.

Step. 1. Download the following photo, which we were going to use for our Christmas card this year if we had got around to ordering them:

Step 2. Hit “Print” on your computer. Color printer preferred.

Step. 3. Under the photo write “Seasons Greetings from The Roy Family. Ronnie, Laurie and Andrew.” Add x’s and o’s or a smiley face if we have that kind of a relationship.

Step 4. Put in place of honor with the rest of your Christmas cards.

And we’re done! Hope you all have a Merry Christmas or whatever you do or don’t celebrate these days.